


Taste the Feeling

by ifntae



Series: puppy ten [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, alternate universe - puppy and owner, puppy!ten, very cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 22:43:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10260464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifntae/pseuds/ifntae
Summary: He likes the smell of this human, and the ‘badum badum’ his chest makes against Ten’s ears. It’s fascinating, and Ten hopes this human will take him with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so, this was going to be a short thing and it ended up being more than 3k, ha. what do you know? lol  
> ten's race is shiba inu, and he's very very veeery cute.  
> (the end is probably shitty so i might write more about puppy!ten in the future, who knows?) (haven't checked it so sorry for possible typos!)

The day Ten gets adopted, he swears it’s the best day of his life.

His life had been pretty simple for the first days after he was born, crawling around and sucking on his mother’s nipple for more milk while he fights his brothers and sisters for it. He likes it here. Even if the room for them is a little closed, he still likes it. His mother cleans him with her tongue every once in awhile and even after she had pushed him to the side to continue with his siblings, he still snuggles up against her, making her his cute eyes. He doesn’t get bathed again, but she still licks his face, and it’s enough for him.

Ten is different from his brothers and sisters, different in color. While most of them are brown or black, Ten is the only one who is completely white. His mother tells him it’s okay, that it makes him special, and Ten believes her, because there’s no one as beautiful and wise as his mother.

There’s this human that comes every once in awhile. He provides food for his mother, so Ten likes him. He gets petted by this human, though not a lot like his siblings do. But Ten thinks it’s okay. Being completely white, it shows a lot more when he’s dirty, and this human tries to not pet him if he looks dirty.

One day, the human brought another human.

For Ten they’re all the same. Tall, twice or trice as his mother and with hair growing only on top of their heads and sometimes under their mouth, so Ten doesn’t think much about it, until the other human takes one of his sisters, Five, and takes it with him.

Five never returns, and Ten is slowly forgetting she even existed. His other siblings make it easy to forget, but his mother doesn’t. She cries, not all the time, but it makes the mood sour. The original human comes again, trying to console his mother, and Ten tries to stand up to bite him, but the human only laughs, and pets him.

When the next human came, Ten feared that they were going to take another one of his siblings.

This time it was Two. Two had a beautiful fur, even though being brown as the others, his was lightened up in an unique way. This time, Ten’s mother doesn’t cry as much. She says they’re going to better places, and that she knew it was going to happen, she just didn’t want it to happen so fast.

“Will I get taken too?” Seven asks, chewing one of her nipples with his gums.

“Yes, you’ll go with different families, and you’ll have people there to love you, just like Taeyong loves me.”

Oh, so that was the human’s name.

His mom talks and talks about how great of an owner Taeyong is, and Ten doesn’t believe it entirely, not until Taeyong finally lets them out in his garden one afternoon.

His steps are sloppy, but he feels kind of satisfied to see he wasn’t struggling as Six was, who was being literally pushed by their mother. He learns what grass is, and he loves it. He chews on it and even though the flavor isn’t as good as his mother’s milk, he likes it.

In no time he’s walking and even running over the grass. He plays with One, trying to see who reaches for the other’s neck first, when Taeyong comes and takes her away. One is very cute, so he thinks Taeyong will pet her, but as he gives One to another human, Ten understands.

 _She’s going with a better family_ , he thinks. He’s happy for her, but he’s sad too.

Sad because he would’ve liked to play with her a little more. Sad because, that means he can get taken anytime. But it’s a good thing, right? He’ll be loved where he is going, and that is all that matters.

There’s only four of them by the end of the month. Ten, Seven, Three and Six.

Being taken away stopped being such a bad thing at some point. Her mother loved them, and she tried to convince them that this really was a good thing, that there was nothing to fear and they could maybe have other dog friends where they’re going.

Ten starts to daydream about how could his future family be. Will it be only one human, like Taeyong has his mother? Or will it be a family, like when Four had gone away to a girl’s embrace while their parents looked down to him, happy?

Whatever that would be, he was going to like it.

But it just took too much time.

Six was the last one to go, before him.

Despite his mother’s comments about him getting adopted, Ten is losing his faith by the second month. Is he not cute enough? Does he have something funny on his nose? Or is everyone threatened by his color?

He bats himself in mud one day, trying to look like Six who went away before him and whose fur was black as the night. Maybe this way someone will want him, he figures.

But instead, and for the first time, he gets scolded.

It’s not harsh, but being the first time, Ten cries that night. Taeyong said he wasn’t a good puppy. That if he behaved this way, it would be far more difficult to make someone adopt him. And Ten believed him.

He grew attached to his mother, getting used to the idea that he would probably not get adopted, that this would be his family. His mother and Taeyong. A part of him is happy, but the part that dreamed about another family didn’t like it.

Then, one day, it happened.

Ten was minding his own business, biting off a very tasty bone when Taeyong arrived with his other human. They looked the same age, and Taeyong had been bringing boys a lot these days, so he doesn’t think much of it.

“So, there’s Ten.” Taeyong says, and Ten twitches his ear at the sound of his name.

“Ten? Why Ten?”

“Okay, don’t laugh at me, but since they were ten puppies, I just put a name of a number on each of them.”

The other human laughs out loud, ignoring Taeyong’s ‘I wasn’t think then!’. The human laughs so hard he falls onto the grass, and it’s maybe on purpose, but Ten runs to this human, ready to lick his face.

He has done it with Taeyong, and even though he doesn’t like it, he figures not all humans are the same. He does it because of that, and because this human smells extremely well.

Ten places his two front paws on the human’s hair and starts licking his forehead, reaching his eyes and nose. The human laughs even more, and Ten moves his tail in delight.

Then, the human takes Ten in his hands and lifts him up to stop, and to have a better look at him. Ten tries to get off at first, but after the human sits down and brings him near his heart, he stops.

He likes the smell of this human, and the ‘badum badum’ his chest makes against Ten’s ears. It’s fascinating, and Ten hopes this human will take him with him.

“So, do you want him or not?”

The human hums. “I don’t know man, I can’t really afford taking care of a puppy right now, I just came because you said he was cute.”

Ten doesn’t understand what he means, but he sees Taeyong’s frown and concludes that is a bad sign. So he does what he does best, make cute eyes and crying noises.

The human looks at him, thoughtful. “Ugh, why do you have to be incredibly cute, though?”

Ten wonders if moving his head to one side would make him look cuter, and after doing it and having the human throwing himself back at the grass with a grown and ‘oh my fucking god’ he reckons it did.

 

Ten learns that night that the human’s name is Youngho, but Taeyong calls him Johnny, so Ten sticks with Johnny. Johnny stays for dinner and by the way Johnny keeps Ten by his side on the couch, ignoring Taeyong’s complains about the fur Ten will leave behind there, Ten reckons Johnny is really taking him. Johnny feeds him some pizza when Taeyong is not watching, and Ten, even if he doesn’t get much, sticks with licking the older’s fingers, making him laugh.

That’s another thing he learns that night. Johnny’s laugh is probably the best sound in this world.

“You can change his name,” Taeyong says, petting Ten’s mother. “I’ve been calling him Ten but you can always change it.”

Johnny gives a thought on it, staring into Ten’s eyes. “Hmm… no, I like it. Besides, I’ll only get him more confused if I change it.”

Ten says a quick goodbye to his mother, but he knows this won’t be the last time he sees her, as Johnny promises to bring him with her often. Taeyong doesn’t really like the idea, but after Johnny shoves Ten into his face and the puppy licks his cheeks, he gives in.

Johnny laughs again, and Ten makes sure to remember every single thing that makes him laugh.

 

Johnny’s apartment is different from Taeyong’s.

He doesn’t own a garden like Taeyong, but Johnny promises him to take him often to the park. Ten doesn’t know what a park means, but it must be good. His kitchen is right besides the bathroom, that is right besides his bed, which is in front of the TV and besides the entrance door.

“I’m sorry for the little space” Johnny laughs nervously, and Ten only stares at him. “But, if everything goes well, I’ll have a promotion and we’ll get a bigger apartment.” Ten doesn’t know what promotion means, but since it draws a smile on Johnny’s face, it must be good too.

Johnny feeds him a slice of ham since he really didn’t prepare food for Ten, but Ten doesn’t mind, he could eat this ham for his entire life.

Ten sleeps snuggled up against Johnny’s chest that night, just like he did with his mother. The smell it’s different, and even though Ten is starting to get addicted to it, to _his_ human, a part of him gets homesick, and he cries. Johnny gets up frightened, looking around for the source of the noise and find him besides him, coming from this cute puppy he just adopted.

“Oh, Ten…” Johnny takes him between his hands, and kisses the top of his head. “Why are you crying?” he caresses the top of Ten’s head with his index finger, and it soothes him. “Do you want me to sing for you?” Ten stops crying, and looks curious at his owner.

“Okay,” Johnny says and adds, “I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

Johnny starts singing, it’s not too loud, and it’s not an elaborated song, it’s mostly like a lullaby and Ten starts to drift off. The sound of his voice is so beautiful he tries to fight against the sleep to hear more of it, but Johnny’s fingers massaging his scalp is ironically not helping.

He finally falls asleep by the third song, with the thought of if this sound was better than his laugh, and Johnny chuckles lightly, giving Ten a final kiss before falling asleep too.

 

The next morning is a bit rushed. The alarm doesn’t work and when Johnny wakes up, he’s past his hour to get to his job on time. He has a quick shower, and Ten, wondering what the human was doing, goes inside the shower with him. Johnny doesn’t notice he’s there until he turns around for the shampoo and accidentally kicks Ten, making him bark at the human.

“Wha- Ten, no!”

Johnny cleans him after the bath, rushed to get him dry and not even having anything for breakfast before storming out of his apartment.

“I’ll come back in a few hours, don’t break anything!”

Ten sits in front of the door for a few minutes. When is his human coming back? In a few hours… but what ‘a few hours’ meant?

He walks around the apartment, sniffing every possible place and trying to reach for the chair besides the table, smelling something good from up there. After half an hour of fruitless attempts, he gives up and goes back to the bed, chewing on Johnny’s blanket. After a few minutes of chewing on it, the smell of soap reaches his nose and he walks into the bathroom, where Johnny and him were bathing.

There’s this white thing besides the huge other thing where Johnny peed this morning, and it’s incredibly fluffy. Is this a toy? The taste of it is not really good, he notices after managing to make it fall, but somehow the thing can get incredibly long. So Ten plays with it for a while, before his bladder gives in and he’s peeing in the middle of the living room. Or is it the bedroom? There’s not much doors like in Taeyong’s house, so Ten doesn’t think much about it.

By the time Johnny comes back, Ten has somehow managed to get on top of the table and he’s chewing on the cold leftover pizza. Johnny screams, and Ten gets scared.

“What did you do?!” Johnny sobs between his hands. There are no tears coming out, but he makes weird noises, just like Ten does when he’s crying. “I guess I deserve this.” He sighs, as he walks in and pets lightly the top of Ten’s head.

Ten is confused, is he angry or not?

“Bad dog!” Johnny scolds.

Oh, he is.

“How can you do such mess and at the same time be this cute? I hate you but love you so much.”

Is he?

“Let’s go to bed, I want to rest a bit before feeding our two very hungry mouths.” Johnny says, taking Ten between his hands and walking to his bed. In the middle of the walk, his feet touches something wet. And smelly.

Johnny is back to making those weird sounds Ten is growing to hate, and he licks the human’s cheek, maybe this way it would make him stop on such noises.

 

It takes Johnny another month to get used to Ten’s presence. He spends entire afternoons reading on the internet about how to take care of a puppy, and he starts to get better at the job of being an owner. He shuts the bathroom door when he goes away, throws away the leftovers instead of leaving them on the table, and even buying some toys for Ten to chew on while his teeth are still starting to grow, just like his height.

As promised, Johnny takes Ten to the park quite often.

Sometimes it’s only the two of them playing around, and other times Johnny brings him close to other dogs, and they play together. At first Johnny was scared for the big dogs doing something to Ten, but what Ten lacked in size, he compensated it in agility.

Johnny had many first times with Ten. His first time of loving another living thing that didn’t do anything else but bark at him, pee on his floor or wake him up by licking his face, first time of buying food for someone else than him, and first time to have a heart attack.

It happened one friday afternoon and the rainy season had come around. Johnny had caught the flu, and after days of fighting against it, on friday he was finally done with it. So he bought extra food for him and Ten, ready to have a boys’ night. But when he arrived home, instead of finding an excited Ten jumping at him with those cute high barks, he found a lot of little vomits in his floor, and his puppy snuggled up in one of the corners of the room where the light didn’t reach him.

“What’s wrong?” Johnny asks Ten, and, of course, he gets no response in return. “Hey, come here” Despite Ten’s attempts to stay on his corner, Johnny has no problem lifting him up to look at him. “Are you sick?” Ten’s tummy start to contract, and in a few seconds he vomits again on Johnny’s hand.

“Oh my god, oh my- okay, don’t panic, it’ll be fine, you hear me Ten? Everything will be fine” Johnny leaves Ten on the floor to wash his hand, and Ten crawls back to the corner.

Johnny makes sure to clean all the vomits before putting on his jacket and bringing Ten with him.

The rain is pouring hard and the temperature has dropped down too, so Johnny huddles Ten on the inside of his jacket, leaving the zipper under the puppy’s chin.

“Everything will be fine, I swear.” Ten hears his human say, and even though he feels like vomiting again, he calms down. His human is smart, and if he says not to worry, then Ten won’t worry.

Johnny tries to call Taeyong on his way out, not knowing any vet near his apartment, but as the younger doesn’t answer, he has to conform with Google Map’s suggestions.

He gets lost twice, but after running (slowly, he doesn’t want to fall and crush Ten with his body) for a while, he finally finds the vet.

Johnny tells the veterinarian Ten’s state, the number of vomits he found and that he didn’t want to leave the corner of his house, and the veterinarian tells him to calm down.

“How can I calm down!?” Johnny screams, “What if he’s dying? Oh my god, am I killing my dog?!”

“Sir, vomiting can mean a lot of things, and if you don’t calm down I can’t do my job.”

Ten doesn’t really like the room where they go into, it smells weird, with the scent of a lot of others dogs, and by Johnny’s expression, Ten figures this must not be good. But the veterinarian’s fingers are skilled and her tone of voice is calming.

After a few minutes of touching Ten here and there, making him open his mouth to see inside, and sticking an uncomfortable thing up his ass, she finally says it’s nothing severe.

“His immune system is still building up, and by giving him different things to eat or him eating too fast, he can upset his bowels. I will prescribe antiemetic for Ten, to stop the vomiting for occurring. I want you to give him a lot of fluids and collect some of his feces if you still see him acting different or vomiting.”

Johnny doesn’t find this woman attractive, not to the very least, but after hearing all that, he feels like giving her a kiss right there.

He pays for the consult and medication before going out to the rain again. A huge weight leaves his shoulders and he sits in a bench to process everything.

Ten, in the inside of Johnny’s jacket and feeling a little bit better than before, bites the little bone toy Johnny brought with him, until he feels something wet on top of his head.

It’s still raining, but Johnny has both of them covered under his umbrella, so where was the wetness coming from? He looks up to his human and tears are going down his cheeks.

Ten doesn’t know what to do. Should he bark? Make a crying noise? But his human is crying enough. With both of his paws, he raises up well until his head is in Johnny’s level. And he starts licking the tears off.

Johnny laughs, and Ten licks him more.

“I was so scared, y’know?” Johnny tells him, petting his head. “I won’t ever let you feel at pain, okay? This is the first and last time it happens. I love you, Ten.”

Ten feels loved under the care of his human and even if his tummy still tingled in a funny way, he licked his human a bit more, for good measure. He doesn’t know how to say ‘me too’ but he knows how to make him laugh, which could be almost the same thing, right?

“Yeah, yeah, I know you love me too.” Johnny laughs, finally shoving away Ten’s tiny mouth from him.


End file.
